Akihito Kanbara

Akihito Kanbara
Kanji	神原 秋人
Rōmaji	Kanbara Akihito
Also known as	Akkey (by Hiroomi) Akkun (by Yayoi)
Description
Race	Half-Youmu
Gender	Male
Sign	Libra
Birthday	October 7th
Age	16
Blood Type	A
Height	171 cm (5' 7")
Professional Status
Occupation	2nd year High School Student Literary Club vice-president
Affiliation	Literary Club
Personal Status
Relatives	Yayoi Kanbara (mother)
Debut
Anime	Carmine (episode 1)
Voice Actors
Japanese	KENN

Akihito Kanbara (神原 秋人 Kanbara Akihito) is one of the main characters of the Kyoukai no Kanata series. He is a second year student and a member of his school's Literary Club. He is a Half-Youmu and has the ability to instantly heal from his wounds. Unlike most people, he is mostly familiar with the affairs of Spirit World Warriors and Youmu. Because of this and his unique trait, he becomes a subject of curious scrutiny.

Appearance

Akihito is a teenage boy, with blonde hair and brown eyes. He is primarily seen wearing his school uniform.

Personality

He likes glasses very much, including "bespectacled beauties" or girls who wear glasses. He tends to call Mirai a bespectacled beauty and often imagines Mitsuki wearing glasses. This even reaches the point of calling himself a Meganest, which means an extreme fetish for glasses. Aside from that, Akihito has a very playful, friendly, somewhat sarcastic yet sincere personality. 

History

Akihito was born as a half-Youmu from a human mother and supposedly immortal Youmu father. During his childhood, he was once hit by a car but came right back up unscathed. This made people fear him and isolate him. Nothing else much is known about his past but it is known that Akihito's Youmu side awakened during a past incident with Hiroomi and almost killed him. Due to this, the Nase family arranged a deal between them in order to avoid further obliteration of the vicinity due to Akihito's Youmu side.

Story

In spite of his bloodline, Akihito manages to live through school life like most students, although he often spends his time alone. His usual companions include Mitsuki Nase, the president of the Literary Club, and Hiroomi Nase, an acquaintance of his who acts as a "watchman" of sorts.

Meeting Mirai Kuriyama

One spring day, Akihito meets a girl in glasses after seeing her in the edge of the rooftop, as if attempting to jump off the school building. This girl, named Mirai Kuriyama, would stab Akihito in their first meeting, only to be surprised to see that he survived the sudden attack.[[ Akihito would spend the next week being impaled by Mirai's weapon, a sword made out of her own blood.

Mirai soon confesses that her tendency to attack Akihito stems from her lack of self-confidence in fighting youmu. To answer this problem, Akihito decides to help out Mirai in gaining the confidence to fight youmu by herself and to earn some money from her duties as a Spirit World Warrior. Both Mitsuki and Hiroomi prohibit Akihito from interacting with Mirai, but Akihito stubbornly pushes through. His efforts eventually paid off, as Mirai successfully defeats the Hollow Shadow, noted as one of the most powerful youmu, although at the cost of Akihito almost losing to his youmu side. Following the Hollow Shadow incident, Akihito's friendship with Mirai slowly develops as Mirai finally joins the Literary Club after Akihito's attempts to recruit her.

The Calm and the Storm

Weeks later, Mirai is already a usual sight in the Literary Club, bringing along her bonsai obsession to the clubroom. Meanwhile, Akihito is warned by her mother Yayoi about the Calm approaching Nagatsuki City. True enough, the Calm creeps over the neighbourhood days later, causing Akihito to feel lethargic due to his youmu side being affected by the Calm. Izumi Nase, who has been watching over Akihito as part of the governing Spirit World Warrior clan in Nagatsuki City, attacks Akihito using a Glaciate Barrier. As a result, Akihito's youmu half reemerges.

The presence of Akihito in his youmu form is specified by Izumi as a threat that must be eliminated at once. For this reason, she entrusts the role of killing Akihito to Mirai, who is later revealed to be working for Izumi since her arrival at Nagatsuki City. In a decisive battle with his friend, the rampaging Akihito falls to Mirai's sword, with Mirai absorbing the youmu inside Akihito, known as Beyond the Boundary, into herself.

Beyond the Boundary

Akihito only managed to recover three months after his last battle with Mirai. After waking up from a dream generated by a drop of Mirai's blood in his system, he hears from Mitsuki and Hiroomi that Mirai sacrificed her life for his sake, and he is now a normal human. Initially in disbelief for what happened to Mirai, Akihito eventually finds himself heading back to battle as Miroku Fujima, who has been trying to destabilize the Nase family's rule in the area by gathering strength in numerous ways, is now causing Beyond the Boundary to go berserk. With his mother informing him of Mirai surviving the fight and information about Beyond the Boundary, Akihito used a piece of the youmu dislodged from his body (itself a piece of Beyond the Boundary) during the encounter with the Hollow Shadow to penetrate the core of the massive youmu.

He and Mirai reunite inside the realm created by Beyond the Boundary and fought off the threats that come against them, including the many hostile youmu absorbed by Beyond the Boundary. They were successful in driving off the countless youmu inside, and Akihito chose to reabsorb Beyond the Boundary into himself. However, as a result of this, Mirai's body crumbles down to dust as she herself became part of Beyond the Boundary after absorbing the youmu months ago.

Following the disappearance of Beyond the Boundary, Akihito tries to return to his normal life. However, he continues to cling on to Mirai's ring, which was the only thing that remained of Mirai after vanishing. One winter afternoon, Mirai's ring disappears, and Akihito rushes to the rooftop of their school. In the place where they first met, Akihito sees Mirai and he gives Mirai a pair of red-framed glasses. Mirai puts them on and smiles to him

Abilities

Half-Youmu Physiology

Akihito is the offspring of a human being and a Youmu.

• Regenerative Healing Factor

Akihito has the ability to regenerate from nearly any injury.

• Transformation

When severely injured, Akihito's youmu side takes over, causing him to transform into a feral creature.

akihito as a youmu

His eyes becomes all black with a multi-color iris and his hair remains blonde only with green highlights at the end. He is also mysteriously surrounded by green energy that is never explained.

Akihito also used his Half-Youmu power once inside the Beyond the Boundary while fighting off Youmu with Mirai, using his hand that held his Youmu powers inside. 

• Pyrokinesis

​He can create fire at will that can easily penetrate strong force fields and cause destruction within a mile radius. 

Relationships

Mirai Kuriyama

Despite their first encounter at school and her many attempts to "kill" him, Akihito maintains a friendly personality towards Mirai. The two later become friends, with Akihito eager to support Mirai in becoming a more confident Spirit World Warrior — these sentiments may have stemmed from Akihito finding out about Mirai's misfortunes that almost mirror his. It is true that Mirai has developed romantic feelings for Akihito over time. At the end of the series, it is strongly suggested that he reciprocates these feelings as he tells Mirai that a future without her would be meaningless. He also tells her that he never wanted to live a life that Mirai sacrifices herself for. He also asked Mirai out on the dream he had on his coma and blushed when Mirai tried to kiss him. Also, in episode 12, when Mirai asked if the scene around them was beautiful, he looked at her first then blushed before saying "Yeah.", thus hinting that he finds Mirai beautiful. He also mentioned in his narration that Mirai's return might be because of his feelings getting through her. 

Hiroomi Nase

Akihito's best friend and upperclassman. Around the time they first met, Akihito's youmu side took over and almost killed Hiroomi. Therefore, following that event, Hiroomi and Mitsuki were asked to watch over him to make sure that incident never happens again. However, as time goes by, the Nase siblings become good friends that constantly tease Akihito. Akihito and Hiroomi share similar womanly opinions regarding Mitsuki and Mirai when facing various circumstances. Hiroomi affectionately calls Akihito "Akkey," much to the latter's chagrin. Hiroomi occasionally sticks his hands into Akihito's armpits much to his displeasure, claiming they're clean and warm.

Mitsuki Nase

Mitsuki and Akihito have a tsukkomi-boke relationship, with Mitsuki often targeting Akihito with harsh comments as a tsukkomi to Akihito's boke. However, beneath this sharp-tongued personality may be a girl who is frustrated to show her feelings for Akihito. She often calls him a pervert due to his liking of girls who wear glasses.

Yayoi Kanbara

Far away from her only son, Yayoi continues to check up on Akihito using special postcards she religiously sends to Akihito. She comes to visit him after the events of episode 10. Although her antics are usually very silly and annoy Akihito, Yayoi can also have a rather frightening side, as she is not afraid to use her abilities as a powerful Spirit World Warrior when Akihito is in danger. Despite all of their disagreements, Akihito tells his mother that she should tell more about himself someday.

Trivia

• His first name has the characters for autumn (秋) and man (人), while his surname literally means "fields of the gods".
• His name is the same as the current Emperor of Japan.